Cloudberry Clean Energy ASA (CLOUD) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, everyone, and thank you for joining Cloudberry Clean Energy's fourth quarter presentation. My name is Anders Lenborg. I'm the CEO of Cloudberry and today, I'm joined by our CFO, Ole-Kristofer Bragnes. We have prepared a presentation for you. And after the presentation, we are opening up for questions. So please send us your questions, and we will try to answer as many as possible. Before diving into the details, let's have a look at the agenda. I will start off by giving you some highlights and an update. Ole-Kristofer will take you through the key financials, and I will finish off with some comments on the market and a short summary. Let's start with the highlights for the last quarter. Over the past year, we have managed to grow the company. You see here on the right-hand side, our growth, both in actual production, but also in installed capacity. At the same time, we have implemented a cost-saving program. We will get back to in more detail later in the presentation, but it will give annual savings of at least NOK 30 million. This has strengthened our profitability and also our cost discipline and is reflected in higher revenue and EBITDA. In addition to the cost saving program, we have received a EUR 5 million payment from the Odal wind farm, and we have also used distressed opportunity and acquired our first SE-4 wind project. Let's start with also giving you an update on the platform. Cloudberry Clean Energy is a Nordic independent power producer, Nordic IPP. Our business model is to develop, own and operate renewable assets in the Nordics. We have a very diversified portfolio. We believe in being diversified on different technologies, different price areas and different maturity on our portfolio. So starting with the project portfolio or the asset portfolio, we have a terawatt of producing assets that's generating long-term cash flow to the company as we speak. We have also several projects under construction, that is mainly hydropower project and BESS projects. We have also permits that we are working on getting them ready to build, early-stage projects, the backlog. So the backlog is where we have entered into land lease agreements, water lease agreements or exclusive secured exclusivity. So all in all, this gives us a very good flexibility. We have been able to always focus on where we see the best returns within our project portfolio and what kind of should focus on. And the combination of hydropower, wind power, BESS and also solar project in our portfolio and in hybrid projects. It has resulted in a very stable production throughout the year. Another feature is very important is that we have our production in the right price areas, meaning that we have the production in the price areas with the highest power price. So what you see here that we have mainly our production in the south of Norway, in the south of Sweden and in Denmark, and all these price areas have the highest power prices in the Nordics, also with interconnectors out of all these price areas to the continent and also to the U.K. So this is how we have been thinking and how we have built our portfolio and our platform. It is to be able to act on different technologies, different type of projects where we see the best returns and to diversify the portfolio political risk being one of our largest risk, it's important to also be diversified on different countries. So this is the flexibility that we are always trying to achieve. And diving into the portfolio in more detail. You see here the production portfolio, a diversified production portfolio coming from hydropower in Norway in 2020. And today, having more than 1 terawatt hour throughout the Nordics in different technologies, and we are constructing our first BESS project in Sweden, one of the larger batteries there with the utility of Oslo and that will be in operation later in 2026. So at the time as building this production portfolio, we have built up our own exclusive backlog. We have approximately 1.6 gigawatt of projects in the backlog. And here is where we are now refocusing and focusing on the more mature projects. So we have, over the last years, built this backlog. We are now not going to follow up new -- acquire new megawatts into that portfolio, but focus on what we already have on our plate and also on the on the late-stage projects, they're ready to build projects that we can realize over the next 1 to 2 years. So that's a change in our strategy and focusing now more on the later stage projects and also to upgrade our existing assets, producing assets with BESS. And here, we have an example on what we are working on as we speak to retrofit our existing assets with BESS. Here on the right-hand side, you see an illustrative example from our Munkhyttan project, where we see how BESS can uplift our project EBITDA. So here, we try to optimize the project, the producing asset, both when it comes to intraday performance, but also to make it ready for the frequency markets where we see that possibility. In addition to looking at our existing portfolio, we see that we have a lot of interesting opportunities in the M&A market. We are positioned as one of the few pan-Nordic players with the network throughout the Nordics, we see, of course, the more structural deal flow, but we also see an exclusive more one-to-one deal flow. And being positioned on the ground in the Nordics and having cash and also facilities unused facilities in the -- with our banks. This gives us a fantastic positioning when it comes to new M&A opportunities. And we have up through the years, used both our M&A capabilities on growing the project portfolio, but also the production portfolio. And we see examples today in the Nordics where we can acquire brownfield producing assets for below CapEx. So I think you will see more of that also going forward from Cloudberry over the next year. And then let's have 2 words about our 2030 strategy. We have followed this strategy over the last 5 years. I think we have seen that we have done quite well growing the company. And we are going to stick to the strategy, but stay Nordic put profitability over growth. Here, we will also focus, as I said, more on the late-stage project more on brownfield and M&A opportunities because of the market. But we also want to stay well funded, always focusing on have a strong balance sheet, always making sure that we don't have to do anything. We can -- we have the freedom to choose or if you want to enter into a PPA or not, or if we want to have a facility, a new facility or not. So this is important for us at the same time as keeping the platform alive and keeping the developing the projects, both on the proven technologies, but also within the different markets. So what we have been doing so far is what you're going to see also going forward. And what we are working on now is also to have a closer look at opportunities in Finland. And of course, safety is important for us. We have 0 safety incidents over the last year, and it will always be our priority to think safety first. So that is a very important achievement. It is also good to see that we have delivered on the ESG side, and we have been achieved a high score in our sector in the Nordics from DNB Carnegie. So with that, I think I'll give the word to Ole-Kristofer and he will take you through the financials. Thank you.

Thank you, Anders. Hello, everyone. My name is Ole-Kristofer Bragnes and I am the CFO of Cloudberry and again, happy to take you through the financial history of this quarter. Starting out, we've had a very strong balance sheet development since listing and the inception of Cloudberry, and that has enabled us to grow the portfolio, as Anders has talked about in a very meaningful way. We have raised equity over this time to create a platform that we can capitalize on and being well financed has been on the backbone supporting us here, meaning we're able to act on opportunities in very short notice. That has resulted in growth while keeping a healthy balance sheet. So capital discipline has been important for us. And we are exiting now '25 in a good manner. We have relative low amount of debt compared to the portfolio size and strong growth in equity over this year. So moving into the '25 balance sheet zooming in on this quarter, we see, we have quite large movements in our total assets and total equity and this is primarily due to the transactions we've done over the years -- over the year in '25. We are now in '25 consolidating a much larger hydro portfolio that we did entering into this year through the Forte transaction, which we closed in Q3 '25. So you can read more about that in the report. But essentially, we are consolidating now almost 0.5 terawatt hour of hydro portfolio. So that's increasing our total assets combined with also the Skovgaard transaction that we closed over the years, over '25, which you can read more about in the Q1 report. So stepping away from those 2 transactions, we do see we have a strong balance sheet and low debt equity ratio of 58% and a solid cash position of almost NOK 900 million on a proportionate basis which is very interesting for us entering into '26 where we see many opportunities like Anders alluded to either to the M&A space or a late-stage development. So it's a very interesting position for Cloudberry to have entering into this year with a strong balance sheet and a strong cash position, which will enable value creation going forward at least in our view. Shifting over to the P&L side. We have had a strong focus on value creation over the last years. That has one to do with increasing our production portfolio, increasing here now from 268 GVH to almost 800 GVH produced in '25, all the years at strong realized prices, especially compared to the Nordic system price, where we are [indiscernible] outperforming, but also having capital recycling, development premiums, driving profitability and value creation over these years. We've done several accretive hydro sales realizing strong IRRs that book value is about 2x, and also showcase development premiums. And this in combination is very important for the Cloudberry platform to have several drivers of profitability and the value creation. But -- and lastly, exiting now in '25, we have had a strong power price, NOK 0.69 per kilowatt hours and not higher -- much higher than what we did in and the drop here from '24 to the '25 financials is due to some gains we had in '24 development premiums. I'll come back to that, but there are some factors when we dive into the quarter-on-quarter development that -- where it seems like there's been a drop, but underlying financials has improved. Looking into Q4, this quarter, we see on the proportionate side, there are increased profitability driven by higher production and realized price like I talked about. But we did have a gain of over NOK 100 million in Q4 '24 relating to the development premium from Sundby and Munkhyttan once they were completed and sold at third-party evaluations that explains the drop on the proportional side. But again, underlying financial has improved. On the consolidated side, there's been an increase in the financials, and that has to do with the transaction I talked about earlier. Year-on-year comparisons are influenced by the Forte transaction closed in Q2 '25 and the Skovgaard transaction, which we closed in Q1 '25. And on the consolidated side, it's primarily the Forte transaction where we're now consolidating a larger portfolio, which we've earlier had as an associated company. The commercial segment is still the most important driver for the underlying financials. This is where we sell our electricity at primarily spot pricing being around 90% merchant exposed. We have a slight increase in our production volumes quarter-on-quarter, even though this quarter is driven by relative low wind speeds. And we do also have a transformer outage in Odal, unfortunately, last quarter, but very happy to see we've already replaced that transformer and has been energized subsequent to the quarter. So that's been quickly fixed due to some risk mitigating initiatives that we've had in place already. And although the production has slowed a bit over the quarter due to Windspeed and Odal as I talked about, we are realizing a very strong average net price of NOK 0.79 per kilowatt hour, and that's very strong compared to the same quarter last year of NOK 0.59, and also strong compared to the system price, which is the theoretical average of the Nordic price regions showcasing our favorable portfolio composition. So looking at the fourth quarter, that's driven by higher realized price, but then looking at the right-hand side of the graphs there, '24 versus '25, again, an effect of value accretion in '24, a large hydro sale that we did and also a warranty settlement in Odal are impacting those financials, and we exclude those 2 positive effects, underlying financials has improved. Looking at the other segments. We have the project segment, which we can start with. Again, same effect. Last year, we had that development gain, showcasing improving financials in Q4 '24. We've also had a positive EBITDA effect of NOK 4 million from the Norhard drilling company, which we are in the proportional project financials. And those 2 effects explains the majority of the difference there year-over-year. In the Asset Management segment, we're very happy to see that the segment is starting to realize the impact of the improvement program that has been going on through '25. Several larger initiatives has been done through last years. We have strengthened the hydro side, greatly increasing assets under management. We have entered into Denmark to the Skovgaard transactions and happy to see that we're now reporting a growth of NOK 10 million in revenue on the asset management side, driving profitability up into the positives. The corporate segment are reduced operating expenses quarter-on-quarter or year-on-year, sorry. And we had some transaction costs and over this quarter, one-offs relating to past transactions and also positive warrant cost actually over this quarter due to reversal of employee tax in Q3 '25, but this is noncash like we talked about previously over the last quarters. And lastly, we are initiating a cost cut program on the back of what Anders has been talking about, about refocusing of the development strategy. We are focusing much more late-stage development, capitalizing on the development platform that we have built, a partnership that we have created to increase the value of the platform we have and also the current asset base. So we are targeting NOK 30 million in savings. Due to the rightsizing of the organization, this will unfortunately cause a 20% approximately reduction in totally FTEs, primarily within the project segments. This, combined with lower overhead cost and also more selective dev expanding will get us to the NOK 30 million as we are envisaging. We will also evaluate more simplified reporting for Q1 and Q3 reports, which will reduce reporting costs. We'll come back to that and how that will be in the next quarter. And these cost savings in total are expected to be realized throughout '26 and will be more evident in the P&L towards the end of the year, as there are some one-offs in relation to these cost cuts that needs to be taken before they are fully realized. So thank you so much. That leaves the financial side of this quarter, and I'll hand it over to Anders for a more of a market and summary before we round up with some questions. Thank you.

Thank you Ole-Kristofer. Let's move on. Here, you see the system price, actual system price up to 2025. And then you see the Thema Nordic system price in euro megawatt hours from '25 and onwards. As you can see, we have over the years, every quarter since 2020 delivered prices well above the system price. Now in '25, I think we have almost 50%, 47% realized price over the system price. And that is the unique combination of our technologies, where we are producing assets in the best price areas and also our merchant exposure. So this is very satisfying to see that we are delivering well above the system price year after year. We also see several drivers, both short, mid and long term. We have, for years, said that we need more production into our energy mix . We have new demand coming, but we have not so much new production in the pipeline in the Nordics. So here, it's a mismatch between the demand side, driven by new data centers, driven by the electrification in general, and also other demand PTX and so forth in Denmark. So demand drivers are strong, and then we see that our production portfolios in the Nordics are not increasing in the same speed. And what we experienced is that our development project, it takes too much time to get them from greenfield until production. So this is something that is an issue for all the Nordic countries and something that is high up on our agenda to make sure that we speed up the development of new renewable energy. So then this is a very strong market drivers for us, and I think it also looks good. 2026 has started very strong with power prices over NOK 1. And we see that the hydro balance is quite low in Norway, and that will also continue over the next months. So this is a perfect position for Cloudberry as a power producer with almost a full emergent production portfolio. So to sum up our presentation, we are positioned for the new energy reality and the energy reality is more focused on resilience, more focus on local production, more focused on security of supply. That is something we see throughout the Nordics. And having this 1 terawatt hour with merchant exposure is very interesting, and we are also working on how we can build more value into the operational assets. At the same time, we have a lot of incoming possibilities. We have distressed projects. We have platforms. We have structural deals. We have partnerships possibilities all over the Nordics. So that's very satisfying to see and that we are positioned ourselves with a strong balance sheet and that we can move on some of these opportunities. And that is also how we want to stay, make sure that we have -- we will continue to have a strong balance sheet, continue to have an oxygen to sit through a period of headwind in the renewable sector. So with that, thank you so much for listening in on our presentation. And then we will hear if we have any questions, and Ole-Kristofer will answer some of the questions that has come in. Thank you.

I can start out with doing one question, and that relates to that we have a strong cash balance and a question is about dividend or proposal of dividends. We also -- yes, we realize we have a strong cash balance. We have very many interesting opportunities that we currently see in the market. Anders just talked about that and that our strong balance sheet is a very good enabler for value creation, especially in the times we're going into now. But ultimately, the dividend is up to the Board, but that's backdrop I can give you on that now. So that's the question I had. If you had one more, Anders?

Yes. We also had a question about resource rent tax. This last autumn, we had a proposal to lower the threshold for the hydro tax, the resource rent tax on hydropower. That proposition was stopped by the Norwegian Parliament, that has been a hearing that we have also responded to, but it's not a political doable to implement any extra tax on our hydro power portfolio. So we are very sure that this is not going to be anything that comes up the next 4 years with the response from the majority of the parliament in Norway.

I can do one more question. So a bit on the technical side, but we had a question about the restricted cash balance in Odal and how that relates to the dividend that we received. So -- and here, we need to separate between our accounts. So in a proportionate proportion of financials, we report our reflective ownership stake of Odal into our cash balance. But primarily, Odal has their cash in the restricted cash accounts towards the debt institution and Siemens following the return-to-service program that Odal has had. So that restricted cash balance is accrued into the current assets. And that's proportionate current as such, which we do not report on . We report on total proportionate assets in our Note 3. So you don't see this as clearly, and that's why we also state in the note for Odal and also in the text for Odal how much of -- how much cash balance Odal has that is restricted, which ultimately will be converted to cash at some point in time. So that's also why the EUR 5 million dividend in Odal increases our cash balance, both on the proportion on the consolidated side because that has never been into our cash accounts, both, of course, in consolidated where Odal is not included, so that increases it. But also in the proportionate side, where it has been under current assets. So a bit of a technical explanation, but given that there's a question and there's more text on that in the report. So I think that was all the questions we received and that time for. So many thank you for following on to this presentation. And we'll see you back over to on the next quarter. So thank you.